1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to providing information of potential interest to users, and in particular to providing information to of potential interest to users via electronic devices in a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
The number of networked electronic devices such as consumer electronics (CE) devices in home networks is on the rise and so is the amount of data stored therein. Consumers store and access several types of content (e.g., movies, photos, broadcast television (TV), cable TV programs) on/via such devices in their home networks. Further, the amount of information available on the Internet via the World Wide Web is on the rise.
Given the large amount of data/information available on a home network and on the Internet, it is very likely that consumers (users) can find extensive information on the Internet related to at least a portion of the data stored on their home devices. Moreover, many users are as interested in accessing information on the Internet as they are in accessing data on their home networks.
In response to such needs, there have been attempts at providing users with sponsored information that may be of potential interest to users. One conventional approach involves sponsoring web-links based on keywords on the Web, wherein a user of a browser is provided with a list of sponsored web-links on the browser based on search queries entered by the user on an Internet search engine using a keyboard. However, sponsoring web-links based on keywords on the Web is inapplicable to home devices (e.g., CE devices such as TV sets) which typically lack convenient input devices as a keyboard/mouse for text entry, data selection, etc.
The existing approaches do enable sponsors (web site owners) to advertise web-links on web pages, wherein, e.g., sponsored web-links are displayed next to search results or on web pages that use specialized advertising tools. However, the sponsored links are displayed in a way that is most suitable for PC-like devices that have a keyboard and a mouse. Applying such approaches to CE devices, such as TVs that have a remote control type of input device will require the user to perform complex navigation for choosing a sponsored link. As such, there is a need for a method and system for providing relevant information such as sponsored web-links, to users of electronic devices such as CE devices, with simple navigation for accessing such information.